The Broken God by Gareth Hanrahan (desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📕

not knowing which thoughts and impressions are really yours and which stem from the gods. Still, she tentatively adds “risk of spontaneous combustion” to her long list of reasons sainthood is shit.

Thing Number Two: it’s really easy for her to move around the city, because the citizens of Gissa are mostly out of their skulls, stumbling around like sleepwalkers, mouthing litanies at each other. She gets the impression that Rhan-Gis doesn’t tolerate dissent, and anyone who argues with the divine tyrant got walled up years ago. Between the general inattention of the populace, and their inability to distinguish reality from their memories of what Gissa was, she can sneak around without being seen. There are parts of the “city”, too, that are empty, scars that move with the wandering metropolis. She guesses these are districts that got hammered in the Godswar. They’re empty of anything living, so she can cut through them when she needs to hide. Best not to linger there, though – in one, the shadows were ice-cold, and drew blood.

Her working assumption is that Rhan-Gis can track her if he tries, but as long as she doesn’t provoke him, she’s as safe as anyone can be in a phantom city of religious lunatics situated in a blasted hellscape in the middle of the Godswar.

Part of her wonders who Rhan-Gis was – not the god, the human who’s become His saint. She doubts there’s much left of the mortal; the body’s just a tool now, a channel between the god and the mortal world. Hollowed out. Did he welcome it, she wonders, a faithful follower of the god of Gissa, thinking he was being exalted instead of being eaten alive? Was it forced on him? Was he horribly aware the whole time? Or did he know the cost, know the truth, and do it anyway? Towards the end, when Spar was getting really weak, his miracles took a toll on her soul. If she’d stayed in Guerdon, would Spar have consumed her? Cari always thought that self-sacrifice was a fancy word for surrender, but if it was the only option – would she have let him do it, if it kept him alive? If it was the only way to protect people she cared about?

Another horrible thought wells up from the seemingly inexhaustible reserve of horrible thoughts the Godswar engenders in her – what if it all works, and this is how Spar turns out? She gets to Khebesh, finds a way to help him stay alive – and in a few years she’s a drooling husk like the saint of Rhan-Gis, and everyone in the New City is running around with stones for heads or something? At this point in her life, Cari’s grasp of what counts as sane and normal is shaky, but she knows that’s not right.

The third thing she discovers on the afternoon of the second day.

Artolo’s here.

Moonchild’s a huge ship, but she moves swiftly through the ocean when lightly loaded. The thunder of the alchemical engines and the wild rolling of the deck exhilarate Artolo. If he closes his eyes, he could imagine himself on dragon-back.

He doesn’t sleep. Not after the first night on board. The dreams of the Kraken came on too strong, flooding his brain with images of the Ishmeric god. He doesn’t want to fall under the spell of the Kraken. He shall not kneel again, not be chosen again. Kraken is his tool. The priestess, Damala, is his tool.

His destiny is clear. First, he’ll find Carillon Thay, the woman who ruined him, and he will destroy her. Kill her slowly. Strangle her. Break her, finally and completely. He’ll mount her as a figurehead on Moonchild, as a warning – this is what happens to those who cross Artolo of them…

No. Just Artolo. Artolo alone. Artolo, the Pirate King. He’ll take Moonchild into the war. Outfit her with weapons, show those cowards in Lyrix how a true pirate marauds. Maybe he’ll go back to Guerdon and put the city to the torch. He’ll burn the world.

Damala tells him – or maybe he dreams it – that they’re on the trail of the witch’s boat. The witch will suffer, too. He’s brought along the witch’s armour. He’s going to use his new hands – his new, dextrous, boneless inhuman fingers – to weld her into the suit. Fill it with hot lead, then sink her. He’ll shoot down Great-Uncle and mount the dragon’s skull on the prow, too. He’ll piss on the world, strangle every living thing until the scales balance and they’ve all suffered like he’s suffered!

In his more lucid moments, he thinks of his son Vyr. Thinks of his wife Loranna. He cannot remember either of their faces. No matter – they are better out of hell. They are safe across the world, in Guerdon and Lyrix respectively. No harm will come to either of them. All the harm has come to him, instead.

Damala tells him they are close, very close. And on that night, he walks the many decks of the Moonchild instead of sleeping. Walks through the cavernous cargo bays that should be loaded with casks of Great-Uncle’s yliaster. He finds one of the deckhands and strangles him until the boy is unconscious, then ties a leaden weight to him and throws him overboard, while chanting a prayer in Ishmeric that he does not know.

The next day, there is no sign of Carillon on the sea. Moonchild cruises the coast until the lookouts spy the witch’s boat. The cove is too narrow for the great ship to enter, so Artolo orders his crew to sail south, a course parallel to the mountains. They are to anchor at the first harbour they find, and await instructions.

Await omens.

Artolo goes ashore, taking with him Damala and a host of Eshdana. The soldiers quail at entering the Godswar, but once Artolo offers one to the Kraken, the rest find their courage. On the shore, they find a curious trail, as